


frozen hearts

by tokyomew



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Feelings Realization, Fluff, KIND OF? implied a little, M/M, Seasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 19:38:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17689598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyomew/pseuds/tokyomew
Summary: Mark isn’t a fan of the wintertime.





	frozen hearts

**Author's Note:**

> thank you love rimmi for facetiming me for like an hour to beta and helping me with my mortal enemy—TENSES! and claire too...
> 
> also i do not know how to tag this but i had explained this to grace as the markhyuck seasonal depression fic and that sounds about right to me

Donghyuck looks grey.

There is something off about him, from the absence of the playful glint in his eyes and the dulled tone of his skin. The boy lacks his usual luster; his words are clipped and his fingers are cold. His pout appears more frequently. (This isn't that bad, actually.) His aura is dimmed, a noticeable difference from his usual sunniness.

Mark isn’t a fan of the wintertime.

“What are you thinking about?” Donghyuck directs towards him. They are walking home together on the coldest day of the year, Donghyuck’s gloved hands are tucked into the pockets of his oversized parka, swallowing him up completely, leaving only his most prominent facial features peeking out. The faintest blooming of red at the tip of his nose and the apples of his cheeks are the only things giving him any semblance of life.

The parts of his face that Mark could still see twist into a grimace. It takes Mark a second to realize the scowl isn’t because of him, but mocking him. He adjusts his own expression before thinking of an appropriate response.

Truthfully, Mark is thinking of summertime. He is thinking of how if the temperature were a sweltering 40 degrees celsius and not the current -3, Donghyuck’s hands would be finding his own on a walk like this regardless of the clamminess of their palms. This thought only comes to him after he had already been thinking of Donghyuck’s golden smile in the light of the midday sun. After their shared supplementary lesson had finished, they had the rest of their day open for anything and everything. He also thought about the freeness of a June’s day and how it was so different than now.

He has no plans on explaining this answer to Donghyuck. Instead, he mutters out a noncommittal “Nothing,” and leaves it at that. Donghyuck accepted his response with a shrug.

Mark feels like a fraud.

Mark was never a summer person—it just wasn’t _him_. He is warm knitted scarves and peppermint hot cocoa, not sleeveless shirts and sour ice pops. More often than not, if he were prompted with the icebreaker question of what his favorite season was, he would always say he loved winter. This much was true. He enjoyed flurries of white snow catching in wisps of hair and on the warmth of tongues. He missed the frosty days back in his home country of Canada where the entire world seemed like it would be cold forever and his school friends would invite him outside for snow angels and snowball fights. For as long as he could remember, he much prefered the lethargic creep of a winter’s chill to the encompassing balminess of summer that caused every inch of his body’s surface to perspire. Unlike the gradual shift of seasons, Mark’s preference for summer hit him like an unexpected snowball.

Once they reached Donghyuck’s house, which was just down the block from Mark’s, the boy mutters a quick farewell before retreating into the warmth of his home. If it were summer, this part usually wouldn’t come until the stars had come out to play. Mark walks the rest of the way home alone and it was just barely a quarter till four. Mark believes goodbyes are only to be exchanged when the day ran out of time, or when there is nothing left to be said. Donghyuck, who rarely ever ran out of things to say, usually only uttered his salutations after the former situation. This rule didn’t seem to apply to days where the air was so crisp their breath condensed in their faces as they huffed along the frosty sidewalk. He kind of wishes it did.

As Mark pulls off his gloves and shakes off his dampened coat from the long melted snowflakes, he reminisces in the feeling of waking up to the sun. Donghyuck would be the one to barge into his room, disturbing his late-afternoon slumber by whisking open his curtains, which would always be accompanied by the metallic grating of the rings to the rod in which they hung. The first thing he would see was the stinging white of his eyes adjusting, then slowly Donghyuck’s figure would take shape as he hovered over Mark’s face, the brightest of grins stretched over his heart shaped lips, his teeth looking especially white against his honeyed complexion. The room would fill with the familiar scent of the sun’s heat clinging to Donghyuck’s skin. Mark could have drowned in it.

“You’re wasting the day,” he would always say. And Mark would agree. He would never sleep in again if he could spend more time with Donghyuck. Instead, he makes up for it by staying with the boy long after the sun sets, only to stay out too late and end up sleeping in again the next day. The cycle continued. Mark didn’t mind the routine.

The hike to his room felt long and sluggish. Nothing but the cold sheets of his unmade bed awaited him—not the smell of summer skin or any sliver of sunlight filtering into the humble space. He pushes open his door to find exactly that and nearly sighs. He allows himself to slump on the mattress, resting his eyes and letting his body temperature come back up from the residual outside chill clinging to his limbs.

Mark is bored. He is bored of staying huddled in his house, hiding from the season occurring outside of the walls. He is tired of staring at the sheet of gray clouds that cover the universe from his view. Mark misses starry summers with dry grass poking into his back through his thin shirt pressed shoulder to shoulder with Donghyuck as the latter pointed out every star he could see over the city’s lights.

 _What do people do when they are bored?_ Jeno played video games. Mark’s tried that. Shooting games only do so much to subdue the longing in his chest. If anything, he ended up kind of angry. Renjun painted. Mark was not particularly artistic. Jaemin… Well, Mark wasn’t sure what he does. Donghyuck, however, always found his way to Mark during his boredom. A flood of texts erupting on his phone or a random appearance at his front door on his bike meant Donghyuck had nothing else to do.

Mark makes up his mind.

He throws on his jacket he had shrugged off earlier and tucks his hair into a beanie before braving the cold again. The walk down the block is nerve-wracking and all too quick. The crunch of snow beneath his boots is grating, and set him closer to the edge. The edge of what? He isn’t sure himself. He is just nervous. He tries to pace himself just a little better, but the nerves overpower his brain and he ends up speed-walking from his front door right up until he is standing before the other Lee residence.

It takes quite a few pebbles until he finally sees Donghyuck’s head of fluffy chocolate-brown hair appear in the window, partially because Mark has bad aim and he figures the other boy would be long immersed in the music playing from his turntable that he knows Donghyuck liked to put on when he was studying. But studying be damned.

Mark waves an arm at him. His expression must be goofy from how amused Donghyuck looks. He hoists his bedroom window open just a crack. Mark could practically see the heat escaping his room. Donghyuck had always liked it a little warmer than what would be considered comfortable.

“Whaddya want?” he shouts down at him. Mark wishes he was closer so he could see his poorly suppressed smile better. He looks golden against the light of his desktop lamp. The world Mark stood in seemed dreary in comparison and he has half the mind to just go up there and laze around Donghyuck’s room. However, his heart is already set.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Mark suggests loudly from below. Donghyuck looks puzzled.

“I have homework.”

“I don’t care.” Donghyuck laughs that musical laugh of his and Mark’s smile grows wider.

“Yeah—neither do I, really,” Donghyuck admits before shoving the window back closed and disappearing from view. Mark’s heart races in his ribcage. He didn’t realize how hard he was breathing until he starts watching his breath form in quick puffs in his face. Inhaling deeply, he wills his heart to stop racing so hard. It is just Donghyuck. It is _just_ hanging out with Donghyuck. They had been together not even half an hour ago! Things feel different, despite all that. Donghyuck feels like a privilege only the summer is to be acquainted with. Winter is reserved for boredom, staring at homework until it magically does itself and wishing it was Christmas already.

Donghyuck appears in his front door bundled up and looking as he had earlier, save for the tip of his nose which was looking considerably less flushed. That changes as soon as he steps out of his foyer and into the chill of winter. He shuffles towards Mark, almost slipping on a patch of ice before reaching him.

He tilts his head up to look at Mark through his eyelashes and his chapped lips stretched over his teeth into a grin. (Mark needs to remind him to wear more chapstick in the winter.) The snowflakes that had already began to gather on his hood slide off his head at the angle. Mark could tell he is close to shivering from the drastic change of temperature from his home to the snowy scenery around them, but he doesn’t look bothered by any of it. In fact, he fit right into the background of light snowfall and barren trees. He looks properly bundled and calmly planted in the slush of ice under his feet. He regards Mark as if he is the only thing in the world that matters and Mark shrinks under the gaze just the slightest bit.

They had been here before.

Donghyuck staring up at Mark right outside his house. The sun had just begun dipping into the horizon, casting their skin in gold. Moisture from the humidity clinging to every inch of their exposed skin as they shared a look. Mark’s heart had raced then too.

Without another exchange of words they start down the sidewalk. Although the scene is similar, the air around them has changed from earlier in the day. Daringly, Mark reaches a hand out and takes Donghyuck’s own, intertwining their fingers loosely between them. Despite it being winter, Donghyuck’s palm still feels as clammy as summer. Donghyuck tightens his hold and presses their palms against each other. He feels his pulse through his skin.

“Where are we going?” Donghyuck asks, voice small but expectant. Mark smiles at him. Donghyuck’s flush deepens, but Mark attributes it to the temperature.

“Anywhere,” he says simply. The response has Donghyuck puzzled again, but Mark watches as his eyes twinkle. The familiar glint takes him back to cloudless blue skies and melted cherry popsicles dripping down hands. It reminds him of the carefree mischief like running through open fields and falling asleep under shady oak trees just to wake up with a sunburn because the sun had changed positions.

Today—right now—the look in his eyes resembles huddling for warmth in the shelter of a bus stop and wearing a scarf much too short to be shared with two people. The look in his eyes resembles sitting too close to one another to make it work. Today, his eyes look like a mug of too-hot cocoa being stirred endlessly and lengthy nonsense conversations in the corner of an unknown cafe, a pool of chocolatey warmth.

“You’re so weird, Mark Lee.” Donghyuck shoves a playful shoulder into Mark’s, and they continue down the street in a comfortable silence, without a destination in mind but eager to be going nonetheless.

No longer does winter have to be gloomy. No longer does summer carry the weight of happiness on its shoulders. Seasons didn’t have to be black or white. They can redefine winter together.

Donghyuck no longer looks grey.

**Author's Note:**

> i've never written markhyuck despite really loving them because i felt like i could never do them justice, but i woke up one night and just HAD to write them so this is that. also... totally not me projecting onto mark... definitely not
> 
> please do leave a kudos or comment if you liked!! or talk to me on [cc](https://curiouscat.me/guanhengs) or [twt](https://twitter.com/renhyuks)


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